


just gonna hurt

by orphan_account



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Jjbek, M/M, SASHA SLOAN, Songfic, canon compliant sorta i think, first chap is otabeks pov and second is jjs, yuri and bella mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 04:17:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14300619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Maybe he’s fantasized about it. Of course he knows how impetuous and wide-eyed and potent and beautiful Jean can be; of course, if Jean ever said what he really wanted, Otabek would want it too.





	1. one half

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanna listen to the song this is very directly based on
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIPAiGeE4e0

10:30 p.m. has drained all the colors from the walls and ceiling and curtains of the hotel room. There’s only the background hum of utilities, and the soft feel and sound of the one who’s sleeping next to him, long frame curled so there’s an arm on his chest and black hair brushing his cheek.

Otabek turns his head and lazily brings his fingers to stroke back the strands.

“Tell me what you want to do,” Otabek says, or mouths, so quietly, so Jean will keep sleeping and won’t answer his question. Otabek doesn’t know the answer, though he thinks there’s a likely one, their thoughts and dreams twinned and mirrored; but no one can see anything yet. He knows what he himself would say. He’s sure what he’d say. At least, what he’d want to. Maybe he’s fantasized about it. Of course he knows how impetuous and wide-eyed and potent and beautiful Jean can be; of course, if Jean ever said what he – what he _really_ wanted, Otabek would want to do it too.

Is it enough to sleep like this? Jean _was_ engaged. Not anymore. He’s still (insert question mark) in a relationship, but it really seems like Isabella is just there for the photo-ops and for the clothes label. And, if Otabek is to hope at all, she’s a familiarity, a careful measure in place of what should happen otherwise. But, you see, Otabek needs evidence, and as much as Jean talks and as much as Jean does, because he’s always doing _something,_ he’s always moving: as much as Jean acts, so he reveals nothing.

Is it enough to sleep like this? After the dinner, Otabek went back to his own hotel room, and he waited for the knock. He waited for the blue eyes and the slow twitch of a smile and the unusual wordlessness of his fellow competitor-and-more (but just how much more?), the arm around his shoulders, their weight sinking into the bed with the door closed and Jean making easy small talk about their free skates and entertainment headlines and whatever the fuck else, while they were shoulder-to-shoulder and body-to-body, TV on low in the background. So they eventually fell asleep. It was always like this, and Jean was closer than all the context suggested he should be. He looked so peaceful. He looked like this was just, you know, the fucking routine, like there was nothing else. The sheets half-sloughed off, dark lashes against his skin, white tank top and plaid pajama pants with one arm resting across Otabek’s bare chest.

It had to be enough to sleep like this, because not knowing was better than – well, it was better, than maybe, than _maybe,_ getting the answer he didn’t want.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, a handful of the skaters go to hike around and sightsee. JJ hangs out with everyone. You just can’t _not_ talk to him, really. Except Victor, who seems to easily ignore the tall Canadian undercut, but he and Yuuri have already left. Otabek and Yuri (the gold medallist) get street food. JJ and Leo go into a shop with Phichit. The group mixes and matches. JJ and Otabek are doing the same activity or sitting across from each other or walking together at some point, inevitably.

JJ’s such a fine fucking talker. He can talk about himself. He can tell personal anecdotes. Then, then, he has this ability to spot exactly where Otabek will actually _want_ to say something and prod him for it ( _“Oh Beks, doesn’t one of your siblings play violin?”_ ) and Otabek will talk, and they will end up having talked about nothing at all: what Otabek really wants to say: what Otabek really wants to do, grab JJ’s pretty face between his hands and bring him down to his level and shake him: _is it real? Is this real for you? Tell me! Tell me!,_ everything in Otabek screams, but all that comes of our his mouth is, _yes, my sister studied violin for two years and her sonata was actually Brahms._ Small talk is slowly wearing Otabek down, that’s for sure.

 

* * *

 

 

JJ’s fashion label has a 30K follower Instagram. Otabek will scroll. There will be pictures of Isabella, and sometimes Isabella and JJ. And he’ll see her at the airport sometimes, when they’re leaving or arriving at competitions, or talk with her out of the warmup room, or see them in the lobby. What _are_ they? They’re not a couple. Otabek shrewdly watches the signs. They don’t hold hands, they don’t kiss, Jean’s eyes don’t burst with stars and neither do Isabella’s; but they’re better friends, with longer history, than Otabek and JJ.

 

Why is he wasting time on this, Otabek will ask himself, when he clicks the notification or catches his thoughts tracing over the matter of _Jean-Jacques Leroy_ while he’s in the middle of a step sequence he’s rehearsed far too many times. He’d try to scrape off this preoccupation from his routine, because he should be at the rise of his career, he shouldn’t be worrying about love and such, just his quad sal and lutz. But thoughts of the man stick to him strong and stiff and he wonder’s if he’s got a problem, that’s just how much he notices the minutes of his day being consumed by _what ifs_ and, mostly, _why nots._

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not like they _don’t_ have a history, him and Jean. They lived in the same house. They practiced at the same rink. They practically did everything together for a solid year.

Otabek misses that. Don’t you always miss when you were young and things were easy? Do you miss more than that? Does Otabek miss more than that?

Jean’s always been a . . . a firework, a burst of sensory input, reaction upon heel of reaction, a thing of passion who throws himself in headfirst. And stubborn. That is maybe their most overlapping quality – apart from the hairstyle – and maybe partly to blame for This ( _This Problem_ ). He’s always been a little too much and over-the-top. Those levels of personality are JJ’s _normal_.

So it’s very hard not to think that JJ’s just being JJ, just having fun. He invites Otabek and Leo and Yuri and a couple other skaters to join a Jasper trip. Enjoy other winter sports, right? Otabek goes. When they go skiing and when they eat and when they walk, JJ’s at his side, mostly. Isabella’s off working on a campaign, JJ waves away. He’s having fun, for sure, oh, it’s fun, when they all come back in and get drinks and Yuri and Leo go off to their rooms and JJ comes back to Otabek’s. And when Jean falls asleep with Otabek, Otabek’s left as the only one awake, and maybe the only one, period.

Otabek asks himself for the nth time how he should ask JJ about this. What he should say. But there’s always a raw feeling in his gut that stops any words from coming out. The soft awareness of the pressure of JJ lying with him and the smell of his hair and the feel of his breath builds to be overwhelming. On the edge, on the edge every time, and circular thoughts are enough to form some kind of panic in Otabek’s mind; he has to get up, he has to take himself out of this situation that he’ll never get used to, though it seems like JJ has.

Gently he gets out of the bed and draws the sheet over JJ. Stares at him for awhile in the dim light filtering in from the half-closed curtains. JJ’s always been a heavy sleeper. Figures, with nine siblings making constant ruckus in the house, you’d develop the skill.

Otabek hated him at first. Otabek’s a quiet person, he knows that. He instinctually withdraws from anything so noisy and colorful as JJ. He made the wrong kinds of friends and went out behind the Leroy’s backs, in Canada, but it was only so long before he was blackmailed by JJ into taking his rinkmate along. He remembers his first positive emotion towards JJ was under the influence. A bit of alcohol and everything was just the same level of input as Jean-Jacques Leroy. It was in someone’s basement, but he'd noticed just how wide and blue Jean’s eyes were and when they left he tripped and almost faceplanted on the curb but Jean caught him. Otabek hadn’t appreciated JJ’s taller, lankier frame until then.

Then, and after. Sober, JJ started to feel better to Otabek, not so much as constant headache or nervous aggravation, but more like a friend, like a maze of action-reaction that Otabek started to figure out. Started to understand. Why he was like that, why JJ was JJ. He wanted to make his parents proud. He wanted to do things his own style, too. He wanted to be a role model to all his younger siblings. There was barely anything he expressed dislike towards and so he always seemed to be excited and . . . generally favorable towards life in general. He took pills, too, Otabek knew. And that was probably part of it all.

As soon as Otabek warmed up to JJ, JJ was already there. Didn’t miss a beat. They went to the skate park or to play ball or see movies or, you know, just hang out, even do chores together.

But Otabek didn’t have time to figure out much more before his year was up and he was back to Kazakhstan.

Maybe Otabek’s figured out a bit more of himself, but not JJ. JJ’s grown. He’s a top-class skater. He’s got much to his name for almost-20. He’s got a damn fine ass, and a damn fine face, and much more. And here he is, sleeping in Otabek’s bed. Without much more, strangely enough. If anyone could be defined by _much more_ , it should be JJ.

Otabek looks out the window at the deep blue night sky and the slopes of evergreens and resort buildings. All JJ has to do is give him a shred more evidence. The tiniest push. Otabek knows what he himself wants, furiously so. And he wishes it weren’t like that, because he wouldn’t be so scared. So much hangs on what Jean should say, if he ever will. And if all the signs point to nothing, when Jean pulls back the curtain, reveals the grand scheme of his heart, that’ll break Otabek for sure. It will hurt. And of course, Otabek doesn’t know just how much, but because he’s so damn scared? Otabek has never been afraid, to do things he’s technically too young to do, to say he (a figure skater!) is dropping ballet, to trust the few dollars he’s had and fly across countries to skate or play music. But now he’s afraid, he’s so fucking afraid of what JJ could _possibly-likely-not-but-maybe_ say. It’s a bad premonition, it’s an apocalyptic prediction for Otabek’s own soul. This is not the kind of hurt that Otabek could get over in a season, or maybe two, or more.

So this has to be enough.

(Jean sleeps on.)

But it isn’t.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Worlds is the last big competition of the year. Otabek’s honestly excited to be done with his free skate. He’s grown to dislike all of it. The costume, the music, it all seemed fine at the beginning but he feels like he has a different vision now.

He has an exhibition skate with Yuri, sort of. He did the track for it. It’s a great story. Krewella remix.

They do well, stepping off the spotlighted ice to applause.

Yuri goes back to get his skates off, complaining about his _fucking feet._ Apparently he twisted his ankle at the end of his free just a bit, but it’s fine. Otabek suspects not, and his coach will put him in a brace or splint or something as soon as she can; but you can’t easily stop a skater.

Otabek is slowly making his way down the boards to greet his coach when he meets JJ going out. JJ slaps Otabek on the back as he stops by the boards, grinning.

“That was great. Add me in next year,” he says.

“Sure. Congrats on the silver,” Otabek says. JJ’s coach and parents and choreographer are close behind. JJ rolls his shoulders, ready to go, at the announcer’s word. In the dramatic lighting of the area, JJ’s red-and-black costume gleams where there are leather-like lapels and streaks. He looks at Otabek, and not the ice, for some moments, hair brushing across his forehead, neatly clipped up the sides. Otabek looks back at him.

Then his name is being called; applause starts; and JJ bursts onto the ice.

 

* * *

 

 

The joyous embrace JJ gives Otabek when he comes back, done with his skate, and Otabek’s still watching, is in parallel to everything else between them. Is it JJ being JJ? Is it the heat of the moment?

“Good job,” Otabek can only say, having to push himself on his tiptoes so his chin fits over JJ’s shoulder. They’re both sweaty so it’s fine. Their costumes drag as JJ pulls away, beaming, and Otabek could swear his senses willingly hold onto the perception of the grip, remembering the pressure.

“Catch you at the banquet,” JJ says, and then he’s swallowed up by his family and training entourage.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He can’t get Jean out of his head, he can’t get him out. He’s had his share of champagne. And he’s had to leave the festivities. He still has enough of his wits about him to guess he might do something stupid and so leaves JJ and everyone else. Isabella came, of course, but his one consolation is she wasn’t really hanging off JJ at all. Seemed more like a party for her than a date. Consolation? Since when does Otabek have to console himself out of jealousy? Jealousy? Is that what it is?

At least maybe tonight he’ll have his bed to himself and . . . and everything will go away, maybe, the alcohol suggests to him.

 

* * *

 

 

10 p.m. post-competition doesn’t feel right.

Otabek knows precisely why.

Now he’s sober enough to feel sad, and he can’t sleep.

Maybe he should have stayed at the banquet. He’s staring at his phone screen, lying crosswise on the bed. He messaged his parents, who couldn’t make it this time. He half-drafts a fake message to JJ. Like he has, many times. It’s always something like, _hey, I have to walk away. Hey, you’ve got Isabella._

But he doesn’t feel right, alone in this context, and his heart tugs inside him like it’s chained to something that’s too far away.

Might as well take a walk. Outside of his room. Got his key, good. Got his phone. Oh, man. Oh, fuck, what is he going to do? What’s he going to do? Find someone else? But JJ is his thing. His only thing. Really. No, it’s true. It’s _true._

He’s taking the elevator downstairs. Maybe get some fresh air. Maybe have another drink. He’s sober enough to feel sad, but maybe not completely sober.

When the door dings open, JJ’s standing there, waving to someone retreating from the lobby, then he turns and sees Otabek and Otabek stays standing in the elevator and JJ gets in and presses the button.

They sort of look at each other on the way up.

“This is my floor,” JJ says, when it stops.

“Good,” Otabek says, and follows him out.

They go all the way down the carpeted hall, passing someone who’s checking into suite 343. JJ has his key and they enter 353.

 _Tell me what you want to do:_ but Otabek’s mouth is dry and he’s so fucking afraid of the answer, of the _real_ answer, the one that could tear his heart open. So he can just pretend he knows.

 _Pretending_ means putting his arms around JJ as soon as JJ closes the door with a foot and as soon as JJ’s arms go around him, too; maybe at the same time, and in hindsight, that’s a detail he wouldn’t have wanted to overlook. In the moment, it doesn’t matter; they move to his bed, his suitcase splayed open on the floor opposite and soon JJ open and under Otabek, eyes wide and not saying a single damn thing. Otabek’s pulse thumps in his ears, palms pressing into the duvet, JJ’s legs alternating with his, looking down straight into the face of his problem.

They’ve never kissed, but they do now.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Otabek has a bit of a headache when he wakes up, but it’s not bad.

He pushes himself up.

He’s back in his own room.

He left.

He couldn’t stay. The act was up. The curtain fell, or rather, Otabek closed it.

Until next season, until they see each other again, until – until, maybe, Jean will find some excuse to invite him back to Canada and they run the ruse again. That’s Otabek’s wishful overlay on the situation, of course. In JJ’s mind, who knows what it is. An excuse to see Otabek or just another social gathering?

Otabek swallows as he trudges to the bathroom and switches on the lights, rubs his face and looks in the mirror. Chance upon chance upon chance. To ask. To say something. He won’t take it. It will go too far one day. It _will._ It’s really unavoidable. Closer. Closer, all the time.

He can put it off. He can put it off and hope for the best. But in the morning, and as he showers and packs and catches his flight and is on the plane, there are still only questions in his mind, and he turns it back on JJ. If JJ had wanted something more, he should have done something by now. He should have called it what it is by now. Otabek’s gut sours. He just wants to know if it’s real, if it’s really real, and damn it, he shouldn’t have to fucking ask, Jean-Jacques Leroy whose mouth is nearly always travelling at 90 miles an hour should _tell him for fuck’s sake._ Can’t he tell how Otabek hangs in the middle? Oh, JJ doesn’t know what power he has here. He could break Otabek’s heart with a word or two.

Otabek looks out the window. Silence will have to do. He’s owned up to it; the truth that he’s afraid, that nothing will turn out how he longs it to if he runs the risk of the hurt.

This will have to be enough, for now.


	2. the other half

The house is noisy back in Canada. JJ’s got school to do. He’s got a summer job! He’s got to train for the upcoming season. Bella’s moving! It’s not official, but they’ve called off everything. He’s not really sad. It’s ok. They had fun. They’re still friends.

There’s this really good opportunity for a training camp in a city about 4 hours’ drive away and he’s gotta decide if he’s going or not in, like, probably two days. Guess he’s going. He thinks about this as he’s jogging on the trails, usual 5k. He thinks about everything when he’s jogging, just checking his time once or twice to make sure he’s on track. He’s heard from Leo that Leo wants to go, and some women’s skaters he knows.

He thought of inviting Beks. That’s really the only thing that’s holding him back right now. ‘Cause it would be _so_ much more fun with Beks. Beks is his thing. Beks is his best thing, you know! He misses when they got to live together and skate together and do everything together. The best they can do now – well, the best _he_ can do now – is just see each other at competitions.

When he crosses the bridge with the perforated steel track, over the creek, second time, around the furthest point of his run, he’s far enough from home to think about stuff like this. Stuff being: his parents nearly threw him out when they found out he got a tattoo. What are they gonna do if – well, even if they find out JJ goes to Beks’ room at any and every competition and they chill? And maybe sleep together? Not _really_ like that? But close enough! That’s too close for his parents! They’re already suspicious, JJ feels, after he and Bella simmered down!

He attacks a still-muddy squiggly hill path with frustrated energy coming up the other side of the creek.

You know, it was all just gonna stay here. It was all just gonna be chill. But it hurts too much to be _so_ close. And then Beks came to his room at Worlds! So he must want something more! But JJ’s scared out of his mind ‘cause he knows he can’t just dip his toes in. ‘Cause that would be fake. If he goes for Beks, then he’s gotta not hold back, he’ll be all in: and then he’d have to tell his parents, or they’d find out.

From the way they talk about the people at church, from the way they talk about the news, JJ knows if he told them anything close to _I think I’m gay_ then he’d change in their eyes, he’d be sick, he’d be – the thought’s enough to make him choke. And he’s afraid of that, see! He can’t do that! He doesn’t have any of the strength to make his parents feel like that, ‘cause they’ll feel like they failed with him, and he’d have to turn his back and walk the other way. That would – that would tear him open, maybe as much as longing for another man and one specific man in particular does right now – and just how much that would hurt scares him to think about. Not himself, no, it would hurt, but his parents. And his family! Marie is still just 5! What will all his siblings do with an outcast older brother, a medal winner turned – turned – well, that’s the thing, how bad would it be?

It would be bad. But when Jean closes his eyes (back across the bridge, wind in his face, he has just this straight path for precious few meters), there’s just the memory of Beks over him and Beks kissing him and touching and his heart catapults a thousand times whenever Beks looks at him and only him, he could swear. He could swear Beks wants it too.

He has to decide if he’ll invite Beks. He has to decide today.

He can’t tell his parents. He can’t let on anything, if he does text Beks. No sly way to do it. It’s gonna be straight up, _Beks come to Canada, come to this camp with me, it’s really good._ It’s gonna be a one-on-one. No group invite. He’s already dreaming, anticipating sharing a room and schedule and a good block of time with Beks. Oh, his parents can’t know and he feels _so_ bad going behind them and – and eventually they’re going to find out, aren’t they? Eventually things will reach a tipping point! Eventually everything will go too far! But he can’t face that! He can’t think of what might happen! It’s just going to hurt!

He needs to know if it’s real. He needs to know if it’s really real, for Beks.

He’s decided before he turns onto the home stretch of his run what he’s gonna do.

Even if it hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song again  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIPAiGeE4e0


End file.
